


Los Angeles, 1996; Somewhere Between a Metaphor and Reality

by AwayLaughing



Category: Red Embrace (Video Games)
Genre: Cats, Emotional Constipation, F/M, Gen, Gen or Pre-Relationship, Hair Brushing, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Not Beta Read, Self-Indulgent, Spoilers, but i'mma use one all the same, somehow it doesn't SHOCK me there's not a het version of that tag yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 21:15:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20552801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwayLaughing/pseuds/AwayLaughing
Summary: Sabine sets out to speak with Markus in the aftermath of Jackie's memorial. What follows is probably not what either envisioned for the night.Or,Hair detangling as an abused metaphor for some emotionally repressed Gols.





	Los Angeles, 1996; Somewhere Between a Metaphor and Reality

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: writer has the straightest hair to ever exist, and also she doesn't remember what was on the drug store shelves in 1996. Any mistakes fall under the jurisdiction of "ignorance but also I'm pretending I did that for the Art".
> 
> And, spoilers for an earlier but important part of Markus' route.

Sabine came to the store and paused, cocking her head. Lights shone inside from an ajar door at the back, but the sign said closed. Peering, she couldn’t see any movement but that didn’t mean anything really. Testing the door confirmed it was still locked, and she took a moment to consider.

_Stay away from Markus_.

Well, Saorise would certainly approve if she turned around, Sabine thought. Markus could very well have a private visitor – he’d mentioned people stopping by before and she gathered Markus did not solely deal in bed-room proclivities. But something nagged at her, a little not-voice in the back of her brain that said just waiting to be called on wasn’t right. Not after last night. And if she could be honest, looking out over the crowd as he spoke had scared her. She wanted to see he was alright, if only to combat the constant sense of impending disaster that seemed to have sprung up to follow her like a malevolent puppy.

So, with all apologies to Saorise, she peeked her head around the corner of her store, and spotted that the alley did indeed loop around to something – maybe another alley, maybe a proper back lot. Turning the corner revealed a half way point – not quite a lot, not quite an alleyway – as well as a handful of cats and, suctioned to the wall, a variety of dildos and strap-ons. The cats didn’t scatter when she came into view, clearly more concerned with the food clearly laid out for them. One, however, gave an opinionated sounding squeak and, tail raised in a rather royal fashion, trotted toward her.

“Hello,” she said, squatting down to offer some pets. The cat sniffed her for a moment before dragging it’s chin along her hand, a self scratching feline. “Nice to meet you too.” Very nice, in fact. She’d always wanted a cat, and worried her undead status might mean they wouldn’t tolerate her. Not so, apparently. “Do you know if Markus is in?”

The food looked fairly new, by the amount left anyway, so she was guessing yes. The cat didn’t offer much in the way of an answer, other than butting its head against her knee.

“Thank you, I think I will try knocking you’re right,” she said, offering one final head scratch before she stood. It did occur to her he might still be asleep – she’d left almost the moment the sun was down, that strange anxiety keeping her tossing and turning all night. It drove her to approach the standard metal back door and, after considering for a short moment, she knocked solidly, three times.

Not three breaths later it eased open.

“Why hello Sabine, what brings you to the back end of second level so early in the evenin’?” It took, Sabine could admit, a moment for her to process the fact he spoke. She was just so used to thinking of him as a sort of whole package, one that included his jacket that seeing him in – well anything else was strange. She probably should have expected pyjamas, but she just hadn't.

Then she noticed the other things – a flash of blue in his mostly hidden hand, a certain _je ne sais quoi_ to his hair – damp and smelling faintly familiar. She resisted the urge to sniff and try and sort out the smell more.

“Ah,” she said. “The sand got you too.”

For a moment Markus didn’t respond, and then to her mild surprise, he gave a small chuckle and swung the door wider. “The wind was more my enemy, one I ought have forseen all things considered,” he said. “Do join me in the inner sanctum then, oh fellow sufferer of my self made fate.”

“Always have a scrunchie,” she said, accepting the invitation and easily ducking under his arm, deciding to ignore the fact she’d ambushed him in his pyjamas. If for no reason other than she wasn’t entirely sure she cope with it if she acknowledged it too deeply. “My hair has at least another three days, unless I let Randal bully me onto one of those bikes like he’s threatened.”

The back was not, at first blush, that different from the front. The wallpaper was different, but older, either a sad yellow or a very aged white she didn’t know. The floor was wood though, painted black and a little glossy. The lighting was about as low. The hall she was in had four doors – one at the end presumably to the shop, two to the right and one to the left. A knot of tension she didn’t even know she was carrying eased from her shoulders.

It felt like Markus.

“A very real threat,” he said, “it is rather small, which usually does not bother me but you are free to the kitchen. My, I’ll even let you take something from the fridge.”

“Let it not be said Markus is a poor host,” she said, a smile tugging at her mouth. It wanted to be a rather silly grin – but she was not going to explain to anyone that seeing Markus bare foot was making it rather giddy. For one, she wasn’t in the mood to fend off accusations of any sort of fetish. She was focusing so much on schooling her expression she failed to control her mouth, and so the next words out of her mouth were unbidden and unapproved by her brain. “Would you like help?”

Distantly, some part of her remarked that she should be proud – she was unlikely to surprise Markus twice in one night every again. Instead she was too surprised by her own offer, and wondered which part of her psyche it had apparently crawled out from. As it was, he stared at her for long enough she started to wonder if she’d stepped into some massive boundary.

“Well Sabine, I feared clamouring customers when I heard that mighty knock, a demanding mentee did not occur to me.”

She didn’t say _eep_, but her entire soul felt it. She opened her mouth to apologize for being presumptive but as was his wont, Markus kept talking.

“However, I must admit I was never terribly fond of this particular part of hair care,” he said, brandishing his comb like someone might incriminating evidence.

“Mm,” she said. “My mother is terribly tender headed. Very fond of relaxers.” Not actually related phenomena, but an exploration of Diane Xhaka’s relationship with her hair was not something Sabine had prepared herself for. Nor was it something Markus was liable to care about.

“Never got into the habit, myself,” he said, turning suddenly on his heel toward one of the doors on the right, the nearest. “Come along, I suppose if you’re helpin’ I’ll need to use either the tub, or a very low seat.”

“My great heights are metaphorical,” she admitted, having been far too short her whole life to muster any outrage over it now. “And we cannot all be animate scarecrows.”

Markus shot her look, amused and something else before he once again ushered her through a door. This time it was a bathroom – fairly standard for a shady looking shop in LA, just lacking the suggestion that the mirror had been broken for use in a coke-hit. And it smelled faintly of actual cleaning agents. Vampires must all use the same cleaning supplies, she thought, as though it was spootless there was no sharp smell of faux-citrus and the bleach was faint, just as it was at the hotel.

Essentially, it was a bathroom and exactly what she was expecting other than that she did not know. Only that she felt faintly disappointed she hadn’t found it.

For a moment they both stood there as if acutely aware of how off script they’d gone. The tension between them was ridiculous, but distinctly present until Markus sat himself definitely down on the edge of the tub – just as he’d said. He gestured wordlessly to the sink, just in case she somehow missed the spray bottle sitting there in its familiar translucent blue glory.

“I hadn't finished dampenin’ my hair, so you’ve not missed much,” he said.

“Well colour me relieved,” she said, and got to work. She rarely got to work on other people, really. Her mother hadn’t had curls since Sabine was a child, and her little brother’s hair had been insultingly compliant waves. She doubted this was any different for Markus, so she was mindful of gauging how much he had wet what little hair he had dampened before she got to work.

_Spitz. Spitz_. Two squeezes seemed to do it, and bring a quick burst of that tauntingly familiar smell. She could probably turn and look at the basket in the bath – but that seemed like cheating when she had a fancy vampire nose. A quick bit of hair arithmetic lead her to decide four sections was probably fine, and she set to work. Once she finished with the initial dampening she moved back around to the front.

She was willing to admit it was, as she gently worked at a knot near the very end of his hair, a little awkward. It should have been more so, though. Standing face to face, exceedingly close and her hands all over his hair and not a word passing between them. As she went on however it was simply relaxing – there was no need to play up a front of any sorts when all you were doing was helping a man sort out his bad decisions re: the beach.

“Mango Peach,” she said after a few minutes and almost half his head complete. She probably could have gone faster, but was not about to start yanking at other people’s hair whether or not they were numb to the pulling. Vampire hair was just as breakable as human hair. She’d quickly noticed via her own testing because she had priorities. And also, maybe this was the most contact she’d had with another person since even before she became a vampire, and maybe possibly she wasn’t overly keen to lose it.

“Yes,” he said, “admittedly a bit strong, but it is so very hard to balance one’s nose and one’s wallet.”

“I’ve always been partial to the Milk and Honey,” she said, “Thankfully it doesn’t bother me much more now.”

“My, Sabine,” Markus said, a hint of teasing in his tone, “is that an opinion I hear?”

It wasn’t a particularly cutting remark, but Sabine, mid way through a particularly industrious knot froze. Briefly she found her fingers, tangled in damp black strands, stripped of sinew down to bleached bones, drowning in endless, perfect darkness. Sabine blinked a few times until they came back into normal rule.

“I’m sorry Markus,” she said, restarting, working even slower than before to give herself time to think. “About last night.”

“You are sorry for last night,” he repeated, as if maybe he’d misheard. Three times – she was absolutely killing it with this surprise thing. At this rate she’d have to try and get Saorise to make it a holiday.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t step in when that boy was screaming at you. I’m sorry I did not support you with Randal later on.” As she spoke she kept every other ounce of her focus on the knots between her hands. Once she was certain she’d found them for this section she gentled a comb through. Then it was on to the next chunk.

Though her voice grew a little more brittle as she spoke, she didn’t let the tension leak into her fingers. Nor did she let her gaze lift to his bare face as she circled around to the last of the tangled hair.

Idly she wondered why he hadn’t done this before bed, leaving the knots all day and sleeping on them had made a few rather impressive, like the snarl she was currently working on. Her progress had been slow enough she needed to re-dampen it, so she did, carefully shielding his face.

“There is a wisdom, Sabine, in knowin’ when apologies are unnecessary.”

Sabine had long of years keeping her words behind her teeth, her expression locked away from anything incriminating. Markus wasn’t quite enough to break the habit, so she didn’t blink, instead focusing on her final knot. He really did have beautiful hair though, she wondered what he used to make it so shiny. Nothing in view gave it away, sadly.

The last tangle she had to work on was impressive – she’d never seen him twiddle with anything but she had to wonder if hadn’t been worrying it. Softly, as it came undone she said, “I just don’t understand how you let it get to this point. Doesn’t it hurt?”

Markus’ answer was wry twist of his mouth, one that forced her to look him in the eye. “Why I do believe I’ve already told you – I am terribly lazy. In that you have been an unlooked for boon, you have my thanks. Feel free to avail yourself of my fridge.”

“You don’t want me to leave?” she asked.

He waved a hand, ostensibly dismissive but somehow incredibly not. “Well you’ve already learned of my conditioner, I fail to see how we can become any more entangled than that.”

She huffed a laugh at that, accepting the dismissal. About to close the door behind her, she paused. “Door across the hall?” she guessed, turning. Markus grinned, that crooked little thing that showed his fangs and she rather liked being the cause of.

“Guess,” he said, “it can be an adventure. I promised you several, didn’t I?”

“And here I thought you couldn’t possibly top anything previous,” she said, and without another word gently closed the door. She half expected to hear the click of a lock behind her, but she stood there until the sound of water came, hearing none.

Her instincts were correct, and she found the small kitchenette. It smelled similar the bathroom, but it lacked the same unlived in feeling. Maybe due to the plush chair Markus had negotiated into the corner of the space dedicated the dining table – which only had room for two. More curious than hungry in the moment, she looked in the fridge and found a number of bottles. The annotation on them wasn’t anything she understood, so she simply took one that was half gone and rather numerous.

Because chugging straight from the bottle felt vaguely wrong she looked around until she found spare mugs, and after a moment of deliberation after pouring, she decided to try increments of 10. Admittedly, Sabine felt a bit silly being a vampire who didn’t even know how to heat blood but no one had thought to explain anything of sort to her and her hotel room didn’t have a microwave – and if it had she wouldn’t put plastic bags in anyway.

30 minutes seemed good in the end – maybe still a bit cool but she was scared of doing something strange to it.

Settling in to the couch because it looked more comfortable than the chairs, she relaxed, sipping her lukewarm blood. Though it was across the hall, she could still hear the shower quite well, and it had a rather hypnotic effect. So too did the feeling of Markus, just a bare hint that seemed to brush past her on some invisible breeze every once and a while, as if despite his best efforts tiny bits of him had seeped into the building over the years he’d been here.

She finished the blood, though she didn’t remember doing so. She only knew in fact by waking up some time later and spotting the finished mug on the ground beside her. Since she wasn’t covered in blood and Markus wasn’t looming over her looking unimpressed, she opted to assume she hadn’t just passed out and dumped it everywhere. Sabine was, however, covered in a blanket which certainly had not been in the room when she settled in. For a moment she only smoothed her fingers over the unfamiliar cloth. It was heavy and woven, almost more like a tapestry, but it was beautiful, and she found herself grinning down at it, quite certain that she knew must have looked ridiculous.

After a moment however she stood, folding the fabric and placing it reverentially onto the couch. The clock on the microwave said it was only just past 9, so she ventured out. A quick series of knocks – despite his command to explore she did not feel comfortable prying into his bedroom – drew no answer however. So, deciding she was either alone, or Markus was busy, she exited through the back door. The cats had scattered, no doubt out to prowl for mice and rats and interlopers.

With most of the night still before her, Sabine only had to think for a moment before deciding what she’d do. She really should go talk to Randal – and hopefully the Mavvar wouldn’t lynch her on sight. If she did she hoped Markus didn’t let Saorise put anything _too_ insulting on the grave stone.

Or maybe she hoped Saorise didn’t let Markus put anything too insulting. Though she supposed, as she slipped into a handy taxi it wouldn’t make a difference and she should let everyone have their fun once she was no longer around to give a shit either way.

“Santa Monica pier, please,” she said.

“Sure think ma’am,” the driver said. “Anything happenin’ down there tonight?”

“Not that I know of, but I’m friends with an incorrigible beach bum,” she said.

“Well I can hardly blame him,” the driver said, apparently the chatty type. "I was quite the beach bum myself, before I landed myself with a wife and kids. Turns out kids need to eat - who knew?"

Sabine smiled, careful to make sure her fangs didn’t flash in the rearview mirror. She eyed herself for a moment – tied back her hair should avoid any of Markus’ fate. Unless Randal tossed her in the ocean. Well. There was no living your life around keeping your hair from getting tangled, she thought. And then she chided herself for making hair a metaphor for life, and settled in to let the cabbie tell her about his long faded dream of becoming a pro-surfer.

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go! This is a _truly_ self indulgent piece of fluff, but a few people wanted to see it and I need very little provocation to share. I set this between the beach speech and the dream after MUCH consideration - I also considered after the Graveyard but I landed on this one via 2AM thought processes I don't fully recall now that I've slept.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy these kiddos being stupid about feelings, and excuse any issues with Markus' dialogue, I'm still working on pinning down his voice.
> 
> Oh and I labelled gen or pre-relationship, because while I know Sabine's rather invested in him and will end up acquiring as many head pats as she can, right now they're just buds.


End file.
